Often the criticism of vintage ads focuses on their inherent sexism or racism, Hunter Oatman-Stanford writes at Collectors Weekly.

But what about ads that steered consumers into dangerous territory, espousing outmoded scientific evidence or misleading half-truths to convince people that appallingly toxic products were actually good for them? Doctors and scientists routinely told us precisely the wrong things to do, as they are likely still doing today.

Junk Food, Now Fortified with Vitamins and Minerals

So here’s a look back at 10 colossally painful advertisements, which make you wonder: What modern “health” products might look a little more evil in the future?”

“Where I can get prickly and combative is if I’m just called a sci-fi writer. I’m not. I’m a novelist and poet. Don’t shove me into your damn pigeonhole, where I don’t fit, because I’m all over. My tentacles are coming out of the pigeonhole in all directions.”

From a Paris Review interviewed with Ursula K. Le Guin by John Wray:

Ursula K. Le Guin | Pictures Online

In the early 1960s, science fiction was dominated by hard science fiction grounded in physics and chemistry and technology was an unalloyed good. The space adventures tended to be written by, for, and about white men.

No single work did more to upend the genre’s conventions than 1969 publication of The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin.

In this novel, her fourth, Le Guin imagined a world whose human inhabitants have no fixed gender: their sexual roles are determined by context and express themselves only once every month. In the decades that followed, Le Guin continued to broaden both her range and her readership, writing the fantasy series she has perhaps become best known for, Earthsea, as well as the anarchist utopian allegory The Dispossessed

SFWA has named Samuel R. Delany, Jr. as the 2013 DAMON KNIGHT MEMORIAL GRAND MASTER for his contributions to the literature of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Delany is the author of numerous books of science fiction, including Nova, Dhalgren, Stars in My Pockets Like Grains of Sand, and most recently Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders.

While Saint Nicholas may bring gifts to good boys and girls, Alan Taylor tells in in The Atlantic, ancient folklore in Europe’s Alpine region also tells of Krampus, a frightening beast-like creature who emerges during the Yule season, looking for naughty children to punish in horrible ways — or possibly to drag back to his lair in a sack.

In keeping with pre-Germanic Pagan traditions, men dressed as these demons have been frightening children on Krampusnacht for centuries, chasing them and hitting them with sticks, on an (often alcohol-fueled) run through the dark streets.

A man dressed as Krampus, the companion of St. Nicholas and one of Austria’s unique Advent traditions, makes his way during a traditional Krampus procession in Unken, Austrian province of Salzburg, on December 5, 2010. (AP Photo/Kerstin Joensson)